1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an alloy having high permeability and consisting essentially of 70-86% of nickel, more than 1% and less than 14% of niobium, 0.001-3% of beryllium, a small amount of impurities and the remainder iron, or an alloy having high permeability and consisting essentially of 70-86% of nickel, more than 1% and less than 14% of niobium and 0.001-3% of beryllium the remainder iron and a small amount of impurity, as main ingredients and 0.01-10% of total amount of subingredients selected from the group consisting of not more than 8% of molybdenum, not more than 7% of chromium, not more than 10% of tungsten, not more than 7% of titanium, not more than 7% of vanadium, not more than 10% of manganese, not more than 7% of germanium, not more than 5% of zirconium, not more than 2% of rare earth metal, not more than 10% of tantalum, not more than 1% of boron, not more than 5% of aluminum, not more than 5% of silicon, not more than 5% of tin, not more than 5% of antimony, not more than 10% of cobalt and not more than 10% of copper. An object of the invention is to provide a magnetic alloy having high permeability, high hardness, and further excellent forgeability and workability for the use of magnetic recording and reproducting head.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Nowadays, as a magnetic material of audio magnetic recording and reproducing heads, Permalloy (Ni-Fe series alloy) having high permeability and high workability is generally used, but its hardness is about 110 of low value of Vickers hardness (Hv) and its anti-abrasive property is very low, accordingly, it is an important problem to improve such anti-abrasive property and hardness in said magnetic material for the use of audio magnetic recording and reproducing heads.
The inventors have disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,743,550 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,837,933 that an Ni-Fe-Nb alloy adding Mo, Cr, W, V, Ta, Mn, Ge, Ti, Zr, Al, Si, Sn, Co and Cu thereto has high permeability, high hardness and excellent anti-abrasive property.
The inventors have continued to study an Ni-Fe-Nb-Be alloy prepared by adding niobium and beryllium simultaneously to an Ni-Fe alloy, and found that the Ni-Fe-Nb-Be alloy has high hardness and excellent anti-abrasive property and is suitable as a magnetic alloy for the use of magnetic head owing to a synergic effect of both solid-solution hardening by addition of niobium and precipitation hardening by addition of beryllium. The inventors have further made investigations and experiments on the Ni-Fe-Nb-Be alloy by adding less than 0.01-10% of total amount of subingredient of at least one element selected from the group consisting of molybdenum (Mo), chromium (Cr), tungsten (W), titanium (Ti), vanadium (V), manganese (Mn), germanium (Ge), zirconium (Zr), rare earth metal, tantalum (Ta), boron (B), aluminum (Al), silicon (Si), tin (Sn), antimony (Sb), cobalt (Co) and copper (Cu), and finally found alloys having superior magnetic properties of high permeability, high hardness, high forgeability and high workability.